family

• family (Murdock) - a group of people who live in the same house, including adults of both sexes with a socially approved sexual relationship and one or more children.
• kinship - being related to someone, eg blood, marriage or adoption
• household - a group of people who live together, they may or may not be related, eg a family.
• nuclear family - parents and their dependent children
• extended family - nuclear family and other relatives, eg. cousins, aunts, uncles
• beanpole family - vertically extended family, children, parents and grandparents all live together
• reconstituted family - remarriage creates step parents and step children
• lone parents - one parents with one or more children, the result of death or separation
• same sex couples - couples of the same sex. civil partnership act 2004, adopting made legal in 2005, and marriage made legal in 2014.
• family diversity is the idea that new family structures are emerging
• polygamy - men or women have more than one partner
• polyandry - women with more than one husband
• polygyny - a man with more than one wife
• rapoport and rapoport's (functionalists) family diversity types:

  • organisational - family roles
  • cultural - cultural, religious, and ethnic groups
  • social class - income and social class
  • life stage - different stages in life cycles
  • generational - different generations have different attitudes
• reasons for family change:

  • feminism - 1970 equal pay act, 1975 sex discrimination act
  • law changes - 1969 divorce reform act, 2013 same sex marriage
  • individualisation - focus on yourself rather than family
  • tradition changes - women go to work
  • secularisation - changes in religion (a decrease)
  • social change - rise in lone parent families, same sex relationships are destigmatised
• china's one child policy:

  • established in 1979, ended 2016
  • fines, pressure to abort, and forced sterilisation
  • however only boys were born, causing an economical crisis
• kibbutz is a community in Israel who have lived communally since 1910. they take care of each other by sharing responsibilities and resources.
• alternatives to living in a family:

  • living alone (in 2022, 33% in the Uk)
  • communal living - groups live together, sharing space, land, and other amenities
  • house share - approximately 400 in the UK
  • LATs - for example, living in two houses next to each other, whilst being married
  • residential homes, for elderly people
• consumer units (marxism) - families buy consumer goods to satisfy their needs and wants
• pester power (marxism) - children nag parents to buy things
• Marxists think that the family contributes to the maintenance of society's structure, in relation to capitalism and social class conflict. however this perspective is over negative and ignores the benefits of the family
• private property (marxism) - ensures wealthy people keep their wealth through inheritance, creating a larger gap between social classes. however this states that men only marry and have children to pass on property.
• socialisation (marxism) - class inequalities are reproduced, children are socialised to be good workers in society.
• zaretsky family views (marxism)

  • the family has an economic function; it serves the interests of capitalism
  • family life gave men something they could control, a space where they were the 'boss'
  • social class is reproduced through the family
  • family provides a 'cushion' from the effects of 'alienating work'
  • however feminists would argue that he focuses too much on class, ignoring other inequalities
• murdock's functions of the family (functionalism):

  • teaching sexuality and gender roles
  • reproduction
  • primary socialisation
  • economic security
  • however this ignores dysfunctional families and family diversity - it is not universal
• parsons perspective on families (functionalism):

  • 2 roles - primary socialisation and stabilisation of human personalities
  • industrialisation meant that families had to become geographically and socially mobile
  • biological division of labour (segregated roles) - instrumental roles are taken on by males, expressive roles taken on by females
  • however feminists criticise this simplistic portrayal of women
• parson's warm bath theory:

  • a man could come home from a hard day at work and relax into his family like a warm bath to take away stress
  • this prepared him for the next day's work
• marxist critique of functionalist views:

  • teaching gender roles and sexuality - children are conditioned into gender scripts and see marriage as the norm
  • reproduction - heterosexuality is seen as the norm
  • primary socialisation - dominant ideology is capitalism
  • economic support - workers are unable to strike
  • stabilisation of adult personalities - workers resume their duties and are replenished by their wives
• radical feminists, eg delphy and leonard argue that society is patriarchal. men are the problem as they oppress women. they are critical of the family. men use domestic violence to control, and children learn patriarchal values. they want to abolish the family by separatism or political lesbianism.

  however families have become less patriarchal and equality improving, and these solutions are unrealistic.
• marxist feminists believe that women's oppression is caused by capitalism as it relies on unpaid, domestic work. domestic violence is caused by jobs stressing men out, they then take it out at home on women. women are kept as a reserve. they think that in a communist society, the family would dissolve.

  however in communists societies, women are still oppressed, and men make their own decisions, unrelated to capitalism.

  fran ansley - 'women are takers of shit'
• liberal feminists believe in the march of progress. legal rights have improved, meaning family life has improved. today's children are socialised into gender equality. divorce reform act 1969 - women can choose to divorce and share property from the marriage. women can divorce due to 'unreasonable behavior'. women now start majority of divorce proceedings. 1972 equal pay act - women are less financially dependent on husbands, and relationships are more equal when both partners work.
• new right perspective on the nuclear family:

  • they want to return to a 'golden age' - they emphasise traditional values
  • they believe the nuclear family is the best as it is the foundation of society, they are critical of other family types
  • they dislike single mothers as they are poorer and raise children less likely to obey authority
  • however this doesn't acknowledge the negatives of the family and can be seen as victim blaming
• wilmott and young (functionalists) - 4 stages of family development

  1. pre-industrial, family is a unit of production. husband, wife and children work as a team, eg in agriculture
  2. early industrial - industrial revolution; family members worked in factories/mills/mines as a unit of production, and lived near parents and wider family
  3. symmetrical family - in nuclear family, decision making between men and women is split evenly, life is home-centered, and leisure time is spent in the home
  4. stratified diffusion - whatever the top of the stratification system does, the bottom will eventually do
• reasons for rise in symmetrical family:

  • improved living standards so equal opportunities for men and women to contribute at home
  • less children in a family
  • increasing geographical mobility
  • less children in a family
  • commercialisation of housework
  • improved status of women
• conjugal roles are the way roles are divided between cohabiting or marital partners, eg paying bills, childcare, earning money, cleaning, DIY/repairs. conjugal roles are the roles typically associated with male and female partners.
• duncombe and marsden coined the term triple shift. women are expected to be in employment, whilst carrying out domestic work and emotional work (such as caring for elderly or children)
• Hochschild coined the term second shift. women are responsible for housework/childcare, as well as their job.
• oakley came up with the idea of dual burden - women are responsible for housework/childcare, as well as their job.
• elizabeth bott (a functionalist) argued that there are two types of roles in the family - segregated conjugal roles (responsibilities in households are clearly divided into 'male' and 'female' tasks), and joint conjugal roles (domestic responsibilities are divided equally between partners)
• functionalists view on roles within the family - parsons argues that men and women are biologically suited to certain roles; women have expressive roles and men have instrumental roles. functionalists say this leads to effective socialisation. however this is an old fashioned view of gender roles.